PATNA: The brutal killing of George Floyd by two white police officers in Minnesota, US, on May 25 led to global outrage against discrimination based on race and skin color.
Exactly a month after the incident, India’s predominant cosmetic company, Hindustan Unilever, made history of sorts by deciding to drop the word “fair” from its flagship product Fair & Lovely – a skin lightening beauty cream of marketing mythology – which according to a source from the company, mints approximately $540 million per year for the organization.
In a country where the lightness of one’s skin-tone is used as a benchmark to defines his or her status in society, the “fairness” cream represents all that is wrong and ostensibly irresolvable in the social hierarchy.
It’s an issue that is propagated by the Indian film industry or Bollywood, which is a breeding ground for the skin-tone phobia from time immemorial, mirroring the societal malaise.
“Pretty is equivalent to fair-skinned. This prejudice is all-prevalent in our country. Ninety percent of us Indians are dark-skinned, but skin prejudice hits at a person’s self-esteem. It is rooted in the caste system,” Tannishtha Chatterjee, an internationally acclaimed actor known for her outstanding performances in “Brick Lane,” “Parched,” “Angry Indian Goddesses” and “Lion,” told Arab News.
She recalls incidents where she was offered roles of downtrodden rural women in Indian films because of her dark skin.
“And when I played urban characters I was helpfully told to use skin-lightening makeup to look urbane.”
It’s a problem faced by women actors across the length and breadth of Bollywood where for decades, only light-skinned actors were given prominence in the film projects’ hierarchy.
There was a brief detour in the track record with the late Smita Patil ruling the silver screen in the 1980s with her power-packed performances in “Bhumika” and “Chakra.”
However, both her talented persona and influence were short-lived after she died of post-pregnancy complications at the age of 36 in 1986.
For several years after, no dark-skinned woman actor took over the top slot until Bipasha Basu and Nandita Das captured the screen with their breathtaking beauty and bold choices of films such as “Jism,” and director Deepa Mehta’s two elemental films “Fire” and “Earth.”
While Basu has never complained of being subject to colorism in Bollywood, Das has been very vocal about facing multifarious levels of discrimination for her dark complexion.
“All around us, the images of women and men, are those with light skin. Be it films, television, magazines, hoardings, ads … everywhere we have ‘fair’ people, in a largely dark country! Every skincare product has a skin-lightening element,” Das who is the brand ambassador of the “Dark Is Beautiful” campaign, launched in 2009, said, adding that “dark-skinned people are often made to feel inadequate.”
“In the Indian entertainment industry, being fair is one of the primary ingredients of good looks, and good looks is a primary criterion for being acceptable,” she said.
Breaking this “class ceiling” are two new-age actors, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra, both dark and beautiful and transcending boundaries with their work in Hollywood as well.
Chatterjee says the narrative wasn’t always so accommodating for actors with a darker skin tone.
She narrates an incident when during the shooting for an Australian film titled “Un-Indian,” some critics commented on why “such a dark girl was cast as a savvy working-woman in Australia.”
“Someone wrote they should’ve cast someone pretty which is equivalent to fair-skinned!” she said, adding that for all of these reasons and more, she would “never endorse fairness creams.”
“I’ve never allowed anyone to make me look gora (fair-skinned) on screen. Our film makeup artistes are subject to the fair-is-lovely mindset. And using fairness creams is unhealthy. Why propagate an unhealthy lifestyle?“
She’s not alone, with a sizable number of fair-skinned Indian actresses taking the same route.
Others, however, admit they have erred in the past.
“My first ad as a model was for a fairness cream. It was an opportunity to work, earn money at the time. I didn’t think much of it then. But with time and some awareness, I personally don’t feel the need to endorse fairness products. It’s a personal choice, made from the belief that such an endorsement will continue to create divisions in our social structure,“said Dia Mirza of “Sanju” and “Thappad” fame, adding that she is in a place to make a more informed and educated decision about such choices and would never endorse a fairness cream again as it “creates a false sense of beauty and reinforces stereotypes that must be abolished.”
Male actors aren’t far behind.
While megastars Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan and John Abraham have endorsed skin-whitening creams, actor Arjun Rampal – known for his work in “Rock On,” “Raajneeti” and “Om Shanti Om” – said he doesn’t subscribe to the concept.
“I do not believe that. If you see the commercial (for his Nivea product endorsement), you will know. In fact, it’s a jab at face whitening products where I categorically state that shade cards are for walls not for the face. I don’t believe in fairness creams. Always found that whole concept weird and racist,” he told Arab News.
The skin-tone narrative in Bollywood operates in paradoxical ways.
Not only are actresses with a darker skin-tone repeatedly invited to play downtrodden women, but actresses with light skin are painted black to play such roles too.
It dates back to the 1970s when India’s legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray signed the very light-skinned actress, Simi Garewal, to play the role of a tribal woman in the Bengali film “Aranyar Din Ratre.”
Garewal recalls being painted in black from head to toe every day during the shooting schedule.
Cut to modern times. In 2019, actress Bhumi Pednekar was painted black to play a dark-skinned woman in the film Bala, leading to a major hue and cry on social media as to why a dark-skinned actor could not have been signed to play the part.
Nowadays, the conversations are steering more toward whether or not Bollywood will wake up to the issue and rewrite its scripts to accommodate women of color.
“Over the years, there has been a heartening but slow acceptance of less than perfect beauties ... Be it with Kangana Ranaut in “Tanu Manu Returns,” Taapsee Pannu with unruly hair in “Manmarziyan,” or Sayami Kher’s non-glamorous working-class look in the recent Netflix film “Choked” ... there is more emphasis on real rather than an unrealistic ideal of beauty. I hope that process of demystification is further consolidated... and that we move away from the age-old fixation of the gori-chitti (fair and lovely) heroine in Bollywood, ” scriptwriter Kannika Dhillon told Arab News, adding that the idea of only fair-skinned being beautiful “needs a well- deserved beating.”
“Being beautiful in your skin is the ideal way forward.”